US President Barack Obama pressed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday to build a more inclusive democracy in his country and said the US would cooperate with Iraq as it tries to push back a resurgent al-Qaeda.
As Iraq experiences a rising spiral of sectarian violence two years after US troops departed following eight years of war, al-Maliki came to Washington seeking US help to counter a Sunni insurgency revived in part by Syria’s civil war next door.
Obama, in White House Oval Office remarks with al-Maliki at his side, made no mention of supplying the US-made Apache helicopters Iraq is seeking.
A statement issued by the two governments said both delegations agreed that Iraqi forces urgently needed additional equipment to conduct operations in remote areas where militant camps are located, but it did not specifically cite military aid.
“We had a lot of discussion about how we can work together to push back against that terrorist organization that operates not only in Iraq, but also poses a threat to the entire region and to the United States,” Obama said.
He focused most of his remarks on the need for Iraq to take more steps toward an inclusive democracy, such as by approving an election law and holding free and fair elections next year, “so people can resolve differences through politics instead of violence.”
Al-Maliki is seeking increased military aid such as the Apache helicopters to suppress sectarian violence, but faces opposition on that front from some US lawmakers.
Six influential senators on Thursday took a hard line against al-Maliki, saying his mismanagement of Iraqi politics was contributing to the surge of violence in which 7,000 civilians have been killed this year.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has been widely criticized in Iraq and in Washington for failing to give Iraq’s Sunnis, Kurds and other minorities a greater role in the country’s central government.
The joint US-Iraqi statement said the Iraqis stressed a desire to purchase US equipment and confirmed its commitment to ensure strict compliance with US laws and regulations on the use of such equipment.
Al-Maliki, speaking through an interpreter, said he and Obama talked about how to counter terrorism and that he wanted to strengthen democracy in Iraq.
“We also want to have the mechanism of democracy such as elections and we want to hold the elections on time and the government is committed to do so,” he said. “Democracy needs to be strong, and we are going to strengthen it because it only will allow us to fight terrorism.”
The two leaders also agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution to Syria’s civil war.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema